5 Responses

1. Sylvia Dobson says:

   July 5 2015 at 10:04 am

   All my good wishes to the Greek people. May everything turn out for the common good. May you prosper.
2. Andrew Carey says:

   July 5 2015 at 12:17 pm

   Taxpaying permanent legal residents of Greece who are not Greek nationals can’t vote.
   No surprise there then. The country that thought up democracy doesn’t agree with the principle of ‘no taxation without representation’.
3. Nile says:

   July 5 2015 at 7:21 pm

   You are right to pray for Greece: and you might do well to start campaigning on a tax justice issue that we’re going to see affecting Greece, and others, in the next few years.

   I have no idea what will happen to Greek companies conducting export businesses with bank accounts in other European countries. The ECB will probably permit that to continue – and Athens has to, of necessity – but five years down the road, those accounts will have thoroughly perforated the Greek tax base, unless there is mandatory disclosure and cross-border cooperation.

   And, right now, there isn’t.

   Normalising such a situation, which already profits all the influential French and German bankers who participate in it, means the Greeks will never build the tax base for a functioning state.

   We have to ensure that there is cooperation with the tax authorities in Greece, and campaign to ensure that mandatory disclosure is actually enforced: and that’s going to need grassroots campaigning because, top-down, that kind of solidarity and European unity is now entirely absent; I would go so far as to say that the ECB will not only be uncooperative, but further, they will be obstructive and vindictive.
   • Richard Murphy says:

     July 5 2015 at 7:38 pm

     Agreed
4. Nile says:

   July 6 2015 at 12:13 am

   Also: Golden Dawn have been very quiet for a year or two.

   This isn’t as reassuring as it could be: I think they’ve become smarter. I’m certain they’ll have quite a lot of money by the end of the week.